


Our Minds Sadly Lost Leave Us Drifting

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, Canon - TV, Canon Het Relationship, Dark, F/M, Hate Sex, Married Couple, Married Sex, Rough Sex, Season/Series 03, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-18
Updated: 2009-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:38:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't know what they're doing, and so they'll make mistakes until they figure it out, and hope it isn't too late. Set during Ties That Bind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Minds Sadly Lost Leave Us Drifting

There were only so many ways Sam could deal with the crap, and one of them had been knowing whose side he was on. Whose sides. Humans, Kara, that was who he was with. Now he was a Cylon, and Kara was insane, and he couldn’t give a flying frak anymore.

“Make me feel something. I dare you.”

She wanted him to break, and he wanted to break her. The walls of vicious remarks, of insane thoughts, of actions that might just this once be meaningless. He wanted to break them apart, crush them to pieces, and maybe find the real Kara in the shards. Or maybe not, and that might make everything meaningful again.

But in any case, he’d had enough of this crap. Gritting his teeth, he shoved her back across the room, ignoring her feral grin as he flung her to the bed, going for the first wall. She was hot beneath him, from anger and lust that threatened to smother him like smoke, and not just passively. Her hands shot out, to push him or scratch him but he didn’t know which—it didn’t matter, he wasn’t dealing with it.

Hands pinned hers over her head, against the pillow, and she barely got a hiss out before he was claiming her mouth, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as their teeth almost clashed together. She was crushed beneath him, and he felt her quick heart-rate and shallow breaths. She tasted of sweat and smelled of paint, and he devoured it all.

His muscles were tense, holding her down, forcing her arms to stay pinned against her head, leaving the rest of her to him. She wasn’t breaking him, she wasn’t. He let her mouth free, still letting his weight immobilize her on the thin mattress. He ached to suck at her neck, hard, not caring if her hissing was from pain or pleasure; he wanted to leave marks on her, as if she’d asked it of him. But this wasn’t like before, and he didn’t want to hate himself that much.

Lifting himself off of her, just enough, he let the hand that wasn’t gripping hers slip down and push up her tanks, peeling their sweat-saturated fabric from that freckled skin. He wasn’t going to leave marks—not quite, that was all.

With the weight momentarily relieved, her leg shot out, and he heard it hit something.

“Frak,” he snapped below his breath, feeling a cool liquid on his ankle. She’d kicked one of the paint cans on the bed, not on purpose, but it needed to be dealt with. His grip loosened just a bit, and she wrenched her hands away.

He let her go, not caring even if she wanted to pummel him, and turned away. Three short trips, and the cans were rattling to the floor, sloshing but upright. He wiped the paint from his foot with a grimace, letting the brown color streak the sheets.

Then he looked back, and she was staring at him. Chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, hair and clothes already disheveled, and he didn’t know how to read her looks. For a moment he thought her face was empty of the wild taunting from only a moment before.

For a moment he wondered if he had passed a test.

But then her eyes clouded, and she was pulling him back with breathless words. He didn’t hear, but he caught the disdain and could imagine them. Coward. Pushover. Was he really doing this just for her? What a shame—he had so much potential.

His long smoldering anger flared strong, and he wanted to break through again, find the Kara beneath this madness. It wouldn’t be easy, it was never easy, and how could she possibly use that word to describe them?

She was using him, and that was the first thing to go. He first grabbed one hand, but she snaked the other out of his reach, and he caught a growing glint in her eyes as he fought for it. He switched his tactics after a few seconds, slipping his hand under her tanks and pulling them over her head in one swift movement, before she realized that he wasn’t letting her lead him around by his balls. Not ever, but definitely not now. He let the tanks tangle around her hands, effectively holding them in place, and he didn’t bother to see if she showed any signs of defeat.

This room, this bunk, the setting for their hasty act of mutual madness, stunk like the sewage ship it had been. And it was humid and heated, and Sam thought he hated it, but in the golden glow of the lights the wash of Kara’s skin now before him glowed and shone. Everything else around him disappeared, and his tunnel of vision narrowed, and with one hand gripping hers and the tanks, he lowered himself again.

Beneath the smell of paint, the feel of insanity, he sensed the woman he had chosen to marry so long ago. So long ago. He could feel the strain of her muscles as she tried to pull her arms free, guide him to whatever frakked up place she wanted him to go, but all he saw and sensed was the smooth beauty of her body before him.

“Sam—” The word came out like a whisper.

He took a breast in his mouth, heard the involuntary hiss of breath from her, and swirled his tongue around the nipple, savoring this moment when she couldn’t interrupt him. Inhaling deeply, he found her scent, earthy and tangy and powerful, and nothing could mask it. Slowly, almost soothingly, he buried his face further into her chest, taking her other breast in his free hand, and feeling and smelling and knowing her.

This scent was Kara’s. This was his Kara. Somewhere behind all the walls. His desire peaking as he saw a goal, he didn’t stop to wonder if the walls might be part of her and breaking them would be a mistake. The walls had come down before at her choice, but this time he would bring them down.

She was so warm beneath him, so vibrant, full of pushing and pulling and tension and fire. He lost himself in her scent, sucking and nipping at her breasts, licking the last tang of sweat from every inch. Small throaty noises escaped her, and he let his hand slip, let hers go free.

For a minute they were caught, her aching breaths evidence of pleasure he was wringing from her, and he did care. He cared.

Then a hand came down, pushing his face away. “End of the world, Sam, and this is how you spend it?” she snapped. “This is as far as you dare to go?”

The anger came back, maybe too easily. She was sitting up and so was he, and when she angrily threw the tanks against the wall, hand flicking down to the button of her pants, he knew what she was going for. He reached out and pushed her hand away, matching her glare with his. She paused just long enough for him to rip his own tanks off, and then he was pushing her back against the pillow again, skin searing down on skin.

“This isn’t the end of the world,” he hissed, reaching down and unzipping her pants, sliding everything off her hips with one sharp pull.

“Don’t play prophet,” she gritted back, but there was almost doubt in her eyes.

He claimed her mouth again, one hand twisted in her hair and the other shakily tearing at his own pants, pushing the clothing far, far away. She bit at his tongue, and he bit back, and she grunted with something like satisfaction or the answer to a question. He didn’t understand. She almost turned her face away, but her head was in his hand, and she breathed sharply through her nose as he didn’t let the kiss go.

Shifting them in the bed, scooting her up on the pillow, his mouth broke from hers in the moment. He took a deep breath, and for some godsdamned reason he wanted to say something. Did you mean it? He wanted to grate out the words, raw and harsh. Would you have left me? Would you put a bullet in my eyes? Did anything matter or were you just playing a game? Is crazy the only way I’ll ever see you, not Kara, not Starbuck, you?

And his heart burned like acid because he couldn’t ask the questions, and he didn’t care if there was truth in the insanity, because he needed to believe that he could instead find it by breaking through. So he crooked an elbow under one of her knees, bringing it up, spreading her legs. He positioned himself, then slid in sharply, encasing himself in the unbearably warm tightness of her. He heard her breath catch, but her arms still lay sprawled by her head. He started to thrust, deep and hard before anything had really begun, one arm still holding her leg and the other keeping himself upright.

Her mouth clamped shut and her eyes looked straight through him, burning like embers in that face he thought he knew. With every thrust, she was less his and more a part of the insanity of the universe. He wasn’t breaking through.

It was too intense; his own breaths came like sobs, and she tried to mask her low cries punctuating the atmosphere around them. She was feeling him and she wasn’t there. So he leaned closer, changing the angle, trying to draw nearer, still pushing into her with consistent rhythm. He closed his eyes tight shut, trying to reach for her with everything they were beneath the bodies. Bodies didn’t matter, did they—especially not if you were a Cylon, and especially not if you could come back from the dead.

He was pounding into her with the same pounding in his head, and he was taking the dare, taking the challenge, and it was too messy to keep score of who was winning. He wasn’t sure if he heard or saw her hand grip the pillow, squeezing because she wouldn’t let herself reach for him, and there wasn’t even a headboard. He wanted to reach for her hand and hold it, tangle his fingers in hers.

Maybe it was breaking, maybe he was doing what she’d asked for. But all he knew was that they both couldn’t admit what they wanted now, and this was as close as it got. If the universe was cruel, it was as far as they’d ever get.

Finally he didn’t care anymore, and he was leaning down even more, stretching himself over her. The sweat he’d licked clean was replaced, her skin shining again, and he pressed closer, mingling his with hers. She was so close to—to something that wasn’t him, and yet maybe it was, if she even knew herself. He reached a hand up, wrapping around her fist gripping the pillow, holding it secure as something else came close.

She wasn’t gripping for him, wasn’t frantically pulling him to her as the teasing pleasure became intolerable. But he could feel the edge and he could only push further, waiting for the tension to overflow.

Then her focus broke, and her jaw unclenched, her breath catching and her mouth half open. And it wasn’t fair, because he was drawing close, and it wasn’t supposed to be this close, as if it was planned, as if it was all perfect and by the book. But fate had twisted them up, down and backwards, and he didn’t care. Overcome with his urge, he pushed into her again and again, until suddenly he was lost—and all he wanted to say was, do you love me?

He was shaking, shaking, and only a second later she was matching him. He still held her fist in his, felt it tighten, felt her body lurch beneath him. An aching cry told him that this climax was too intense for pleasure or pain—it just was. He was almost holding her, almost had her in his arms as she broke.

But relief cleared his vision in waves, and he saw it mingle with exhaustion in her eyes. For a moment neither moved beyond a tremble, as he saw the lingering fear hiding behind the cooled fire and knew she thought it might truly be the end of the world. He hadn’t frakked like it was the end of the world, he’d frakked like it was the end of them and all they stood for. It wasn’t the same.

She was soft, unfighting, unsure, and he almost didn’t know what to do. But no end had come—they were still on journeys, maybe separate, maybe entwined, maybe closer than that. So he didn’t wait for her.

He breathed out, letting her leg fall back to the bed, and then rolling to his side. His back found the wall of the bunk, and so he rolled up, but not before wrapping an arm around her waist. She tensed as he sat up, gently pulling her back to rest against his chest, one arm by his side and the other resting on her stomach.

And now, all he wanted to ask was, why? Ask her, because was this what she had wanted? Ask himself, because had there been any giving in his taking?

He barely had the strength to lean against the wall, Kara slumped against his chest, her hair damp and pasted against him. He couldn’t see her face, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. If it had changed for the better, he’d hate that it took this; and she would have truly broken him if he saw anything else. His frustration and anger would never get him that far.

They sat, worn and worried and maybe not quite relieved. And Sam hoped she was just as confused.

She shivered a little, and pulled the rumpled sheet up to her chest, tucking it under her armpits. Then, the exhaustion gone from her limbs in all of a second, she sat up straight, leaving him leaning against the wall.

To his relief, she spoke.

“We were married once, weren’t we?”

Words. Maybe, in some broken way, it was just what they needed least, and yet, in this moment—he didn’t know, but it felt like they were finally doing it right. Who knew how long it’d last.


End file.
